Mod: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.05)

[Squirrelloid]

v0.03 released. See OP.

I had meant to bundle WH1.9 in this release, but it slipped my mind. Look for it in v0.04.

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And since I've deleted this from the OP, I figured this deserved to be preserved somewhere:

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

When looking at the Ulms, it quickly became apparent that the full theme didn't work, because that theme was 'sucking'.

So here's how I see Ulm's theme. (1) They are a nation built on military industry. They should make superior *quality* armor, which means well-fitted, not more encumbering. (2) They are a nation with a professional military and veteran soldiers. Thus, they should have better than 10 base att/def. (Note, EA does). (3) They have trouble using and mastering magic. Note that the other 'magic is more difficult' mechanic (drain dominion) increases MR. One might imagine they have a harder time using magic because its harder for them to interact with the magic. Of course, Newton tells us that for every action there is an _equal_ and _opposite_ reaction, hence it should also be harder for magic to interact with the people of Ulm.

[kianduatha]

Ooh, very nice. I like especially the Hide Shield changes--you incidentally also made them have a higher parry value and therefore they're better against missile fire than before, but honestly they suck so bad anyways at it.

I'm not sure about the 1 gold militia if just because I can't imagine something that cheap. Nevertheless, I can't think of anything you could actually *do* with 1gp Machaka militia that is actually useful. Maybe crazy Life After Death/Earthquake shenanigans with 500 militia?

I might suggest the ages on Black Sorcerers and Sorceresses to be 90 and 75 respectively to keep their age the same in their spider and human forms. It just seems to make sense.

Have you also considered giving the Machaka Commander a standard effect?

[Squirrelloid]

v0.04 released. Lots of tweaks, plus new sprites.

I thought I'd comment specifically on the base encumbrance changes. So, base encumbrance should be related to how much energy you have to spend to move yourself around. We'll use humans as a baseline. They have base encumbrance 3, generally, and have a certain amount of strength relative to their mass. (In game terms, this is roughly saying they have a particular strength to size ratio - 10 : 2).

Now, as strength to mass improves, less exertion is required to move yourself because that mass isn't as significant relative to your strength. So Bandar, who have a higher strength to size ratio (16 : 3 is only slightly better, but remember that Bandar are actually intermediate between size 2-3, since they're smaller than all other size 3 creatures in the game, so they're more accurately a 2.5), should be less encumbered than a human. Now, the base encumrance scale isn't especially finely divided, so its a judgement call whether this actually warrants dropping to a base enc of 2, but since Bandar aren't exactly spectacular units, I felt it was suitable and might make them more appealing.

Now, anyone who knows anything about scaling in biology knows that given an identical bodyplan that's simply scaled in size (say Giants are scaled up humans), the muscle strength scales as L^2 but the body mass scales as L^3. (L for a human-type individual is height). Remember we cared about strength to mass scaling? Since mass grows faster than strength, giants should actually be more encumbered than humans! But does the game agree with us? Consider the Niefl Giant. Str 25, size 5. Well, the game actually thinks he's got the same relative strength as a human. So why do size 5-6 Giants uniformly have base encumbrance of 2?

And of course, giant units have been rather problematic from a game balance perspective. A large part of the problem is they have base encumbrance 2, which tends to mean an E9 bless lets any large sacred giant be fatigue neutral. Combined with their generally good to great protection and large sack of hp, this leads to them being 'too good'. So for reasons of both internal consistency (relative strength as measured by the game) and game balance, virtually all recruitable giant units have had their base encumbrance set to 3. (The Yomi Dai Oni hasn't because its a demon, and all Oni have base encumbrance 1, so there seems to be some internal Oni (and possibly Demon) logic at work here. Its also not a particular balance concern at this time. So I left it as it was).

For completeness sake, do note that apes, giants, and humans are all roughly comparable because they share the same body plan. The Naga has a vastly more efficient bodyplan from a muscle strength point of view (the snake form is remarkably efficient), and can't be compared directly by game numbers to justify the change. (Although if we assume naga actually have muscles, the change is certainly justified. And it might cause people to actually use those patala sacreds...).

[DrPraetorious]

That not quite accurate. Gorillas are much stronger than humans proportional to their mass - but become fatigued much more quickly. A human can chase down a gazelle, which is mostly muscle, and the gazelle will die of exhaustion. There's a power to endurance tradoff in how muscles work, and other features related to bodymass (such as heat elimination) which play a large role as well.

None of this should discourage you from fiddling with the encumberance scores for bandar or for giants, but don't pretend that it makes any physical sense, because it doesn't .

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by DrPraetorious

That not quite accurate. Gorillas are much stronger than humans proportional to their mass - but become fatigued much more quickly. A human can chase down a gazelle, which is mostly muscle, and the gazelle will die of exhaustion. There's a power to endurance tradoff in how muscles work, and other features related to bodymass (such as heat elimination) which play a large role as well.

None of this should discourage you from fiddling with the encumberance scores for bandar or for giants, but don't pretend that it makes any physical sense, because it doesn't .

Become more quickly fatigued doing what? I mean, no, Gorillas aren't built to run, I agree. That's not the only measure of activity. (And indeed, you don't acquire fatigue in dom3 for moving...) Humans are 'built' to run pretty efficiently. (Not notably fast - conversely, the gazelle is built for speed but not efficiency). I mean, the theory does depend on the same body plan. Apes and Humans are kind of close, but when you start talking about a performance area that humans are evolved to do well in and other apes aren't, well, now the assumptions no longer hold.

So yes, there's definitely an effect of body structure and what you're good at doing. However, I'm pretty sure a human isn't any better evolved for swinging a sword or wearing armor. I mean, in reality we do it better because we have superior intelligence and capability to learn (and can have an interest in doing so for these things), but if you imagine an ape with equal mental faculty, I'd be willing to bet he gets less fatigued wearing similar armor and swinging the same weapon. This is a case where the body plans are likely similar enough relative to the activity to merely talk about relative strength.

[Valerius]

Unfortunately, I didn't have chance this week to test the changes to Eriu in the previous version, let alone this one, but looking at the change log there's a lot of good stuff here.

Bean Sidhe - making them recruit everywhere is the big change and will help Eriu a lot.

Cu Sidhe - 4 gems for 7 is cheap enough that I'd consider them. The main emphasis would still be equipping thugs but in some situations I'd summon a couple dozen.

Nemedian Spirit-Warriors and Spectral Nemedian Sorceress - These are the ones I'd like to playtest. I really like the fact that they work thematically. The nice thing is that the Nemedian Sorceress is summonable by your national mages and branches you into death, allowing you to then summon the Spirit Warriors. The cost of the Sorceress seems reasonable considering the magic, unit abilities and the fact that it branches you into a new path of magic.

All in all some nice changes for Eriu!

A quick note about Abysia. While I actually think MA Abysia is a decent nation, having a recruit everywhere blood hunter is certainly a nice boost. But it really helps EA Aby - who I think does need it badly.

I'm also glad to see you are taking on some nerfs to OP nations. Particularly when looking at EA nations, every one I'd put on my personal OP list is either a giant or blood nation (and often both) so I think you're on the right track.

I'm not sure if the changes to giants go far enough. An increase in encumbrance is welcome but I'd go further. As an example I'd like to see Skratti priced higher.

Nerfing blood magic can be approached several ways but I think the key thing to keep in mind is that blood nations are forgoing gold income - not gem income - to get their blood summons. They'll have just as much gem income as a non-blood nation. But while the non-blood nation will most likely have to use its gems to both summon and equip its units, the blood nation need only use them to equip its units. So I think the formula to use in pricing blood summons isn't one of gems vs. blood slaves but gold vs. blood slaves. If a 5k province generates x gold/turn, which could buy me y number of units, and blood hunting that province generates z number of slaves, how many blood summons should that buy me (keeping in mind that blood summons tend to be better than national units and have no upkeep - and somewhat offset by the fact that you have to assign commanders to blood hunt)?

As an aside, I'd also take a look at eliminating the Onaqui's auto-spawning of beast bats. The idea that you can suffer enormous losses and not have it matter because you'll have a new batch of free (and sacred of course) units soon enough is, to me, not a good thing. Yes, I know there's other nations that can do this but since we're discussing blood I'm limiting my comments to that path.

[Squirrelloid]

v0.05 is released. Major blood nerf, and some other tweaking related to blood nations.

[Eximius Sus]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

So yes, there's definitely an effect of body structure and what you're good at doing. However, I'm pretty sure a human isn't any better evolved for swinging a sword or wearing armor. I mean, in reality we do it better because we have superior intelligence and capability to learn (and can have an interest in doing so for these things), but if you imagine an ape with equal mental faculty, I'd be willing to bet he gets less fatigued wearing similar armor and swinging the same weapon. This is a case where the body plans are likely similar enough relative to the activity to merely talk about relative strength.

This is flawed. Humans made swords. Therefore swords are beautifully evolved to use humans. Not the other way around. Same with armour. Frankly, giants should have nearly zero encumbrance for armour if fighting humans if you want to be practical. The reason is that they only need leggings and groin. And if you really want to take that business all the way a giant should be using a 18 foot long great sword and therefore is killing pikemen before armour even becomes relevant. How is a 6 foot tall human with an 18 foot pike supposed to deal with a sword as long as his pike? Frankly, he can't. If I was chosing weapons for giants vs. humans I'd just pick giant scythes. Cut off all the feet of the humans with a 12 foot scythe blade and completely ignore their weapons.

And so on and so forth. Which also doesn't take into account the simple cube/square problem that the femurs of giants would be so insanely large in ratio to height that they could completely ignore attacks to their legs. A human femur is about 2" diameter. Let's apply the cube/square law of structural design. An 18 foot tall giant in humanoid form would weigh 200 lbs * 18/6 cubed = 1800 lbs. This would require a femur of 6" diameter. Introduce me to the man who could cut through a 6" bone with an axe. I'd love to meet him.

Or lets take another example. I have a big bowie knife. You are a 2 foot tall midget with a scalpel. What on earth are you going to do to the parts of my body you can even reach that I would care about? Slice off my toenails? I stick on some greaves and a groin protector and let you slice little 1/2 inch deep cuts into my thighs and just shrug it off. In the meantime, my reach is 36 inch plus the knife so I've been smacking on you when you are still 24 inch from even touching me.

Of course, someone is going to say give the midget a pike. So he's got a pike with a tip the size of a screwdriver and 6 feet long. I've a pike with a tip the size of his entire head and 18 feet long. Let's face it. In almost all melee combat, the taller guy with longer arms wins. There are exceptions but they are rare.

An 18 foot humanoid creature would have a totally different height to width shape. Mythical giants are frankly nonsense. So why bother trying to be realistic? Just balance it.

All this changes with bows but there's a really cool thread I found on the main page about that. I wonder what bow that 2 foot midget uses? It probably shoots something like 2 inch common nails.

[Squirrelloid]

Off-topic digression is off topic. More or less. I'd rather talk about what the mod has done in game terms, but hey, I can take the time to respond about the physical basis of some of the changes.

Originally Posted by Eximius Sus

This is flawed. Humans made swords. Therefore swords are beautifully evolved to use humans. Not the other way around. Same with armour. Frankly, giants should have nearly zero encumbrance for armour if fighting humans if you want to be practical. The reason is that they only need leggings and groin. And if you really want to take that business all the way a giant should be using a 18 foot long great sword and therefore is killing pikemen before armour even becomes relevant. How is a 6 foot tall human with an 18 foot pike supposed to deal with a sword as long as his pike? Frankly, he can't. If I was chosing weapons for giants vs. humans I'd just pick giant scythes. Cut off all the feet of the humans with a 12 foot scythe blade and completely ignore their weapons.

And so on and so forth. Which also doesn't take into account the simple cube/square problem that the femurs of giants would be so insanely large in ratio to height that they could completely ignore attacks to their legs. A human femur is about 2" diameter. Let's apply the cube/square law of structural design. An 18 foot tall giant in humanoid form would weigh 200 lbs * 18/6 cubed = 1800 lbs. This would require a femur of 6" diameter. Introduce me to the man who could cut through a 6" bone with an axe. I'd love to meet him.

Or lets take another example. I have a big bowie knife. You are a 2 foot tall midget with a scalpel. What on earth are you going to do to the parts of my body you can even reach that I would care about? Slice off my toenails? I stick on some greaves and a groin protector and let you slice little 1/2 inch deep cuts into my thighs and just shrug it off. In the meantime, my reach is 36 inch plus the knife so I've been smacking on you when you are still 24 inch from even touching me.

Of course, someone is going to say give the midget a pike. So he's got a pike with a tip the size of a screwdriver and 6 feet long. I've a pike with a tip the size of his entire head and 18 feet long. Let's face it. In almost all melee combat, the taller guy with longer arms wins. There are exceptions but they are rare.

An 18 foot humanoid creature would have a totally different height to width shape. Mythical giants are frankly nonsense. So why bother trying to be realistic? Just balance it.

All this changes with bows but there's a really cool thread I found on the main page about that. I wonder what bow that 2 foot midget uses? It probably shoots something like 2 inch common nails.

For someone who seems to have heard of scaling laws, you're really missing some important parts.

First, you don't understand how scaling actually works. If a human at 6' tall weighs 200lbs, that implies k*6^3 = 200. we also have a giant standing 18' tall, k*18^3 = x lbs. k = 200/6^3 = 200/216 ~= 0.926. Therefore, the 18' tall giant weighs approximately 5400lbs, and that's assuming he's proportional to a human. This same answer can be gotten by (18^3)/(6^3) * 200, which is the proper way to do what you tried to do (not (18/6)^3). I don't even know where your femur estimate comes from, but its horribly horribly wrong and vastly underestimates the necessary bone strength. Bone strength should grow as cross-sectional area. We've increased mass by a factor of 27, so we need to increase cross-sectional area by a factor of 27. Assuming humans do have a 2" diameter femur, that's pi*2^2 = 4pi x-sectional area for a human. Our giant needs 27*4pi = 108pi x-sectional area, which is >10" diameter femur.

Second, an 18' tall giant can't actually exist if we're adhering to scaling laws because he collapses under his own weight. He simply doesn't have the muscle strength to support himself. Even getting the required structural support from bones means he doesn't look much like a human anymore (3x taller but his femur is 5x as wide, to start with). To look anything like human you'd have to make the joints rigid and locked to get the necessary structural support at that size, otherwise the skeleton flies apart when the muscles fail. And of course, that 5400lbs becomes a low-ball estimate when we start allowing his body shape to vary, because that estimate was assuming he was proportioned like a human (which clearly fails!).

So yes, mass grows as size^3, but muscle strength only grows as size^2. (Muscle strength *is* determined by muscle cross-sectional area.) That slow growth of muscle strength does mean giants should fatigue out faster than humans doing just about anything, because they have less strength per mass, and therefore require more effort to just move around, much less fight.

Since we've already postulated human-like giants exist, something funky is going on. The game tells us the funky thing going on is that giants are as strong relative to their size as humans. This means they should fatigue just as fast.

As far as what a smaller opponent is going to hit... how does the achilles heel sound. Lethal in minutes, perfectly reachable from ground level, and the vein is near the skin surface at that spot. There's also of course an available vein in the groin area too, but the ankle is harder to protect adequately without interfering with movement.

Swords are designed for use by creatures with opposable thumbs. If we had apes with human intelligence, i see little reason why they couldn't learn to use a sword. I don't even know what point you're trying to make there. Humans have made armor for other animals (horses, elephants, etc...), so the concept of armor does not depend on a human wearing it. Nothing about the concept of 'a weapon you swing' or 'metal protection' is specific to human physiology. I mean, I agree, we have designed versions for our use. But you have to also show that versions could not be designed (as well) for a hypothetical intelligent ape in order to prove that said intelligent ape could not be as or more capable with them. Gear can be redesigned as necessary (although i doubt it would be necessary for a sword), the creature using it... not so much. One thing actual evolution teaches us is that innovations can be repurposed for different tasks than they were selected for. Its not enough to show what purpose it is good at because it was selected to be that way, its also necessary to show that it can't be used in some different way to claim that a use is unsuitable or less suitable. I mean, bird feathers likely originally evolved as a method to cool the body (much like sweat glands and hair follicles), that didn't stop that innovation from becoming coopted for flying.

[Eximius Sus]

My general point is:

Why bother trying for realism? Fantasy cliche is inherently unrealistic. And besides, the entire medieval combat system in every game I've ever played is flawed. Although this one is not bad.